Geology of New Mexico

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A view of the Nambe Badlands

The geology of

Ma) to nearly the present day. Here the Great Plains, southern Rocky Mountains, Colorado Plateau, and Basin and Range
Provinces meet, giving the state great geologic diversity.

The geologic history of the state began with its assembly during the

Ancestral Rocky Mountains in Pennsylvanian time, 300 Mya. The Permian and most of the Mesozoic were another interval of relative tectonic quiescence, where gradual subsidence deposited formations that preserve an impressive stratigraphic record across the state. This ended with the Laramide orogeny, beginning around 70 Mya, which elevated most of the mountain ranges of modern New Mexico and was accompanied by violent volcanic activity. The opening of the Rio Grande rift commenced around 30 Mya, and was followed by late Cenozoic volcanism along the Jemez Lineament, particularly in the Jemez volcanic field
.

Most of New Mexico has a semiarid to arid climate, and ground water in

aquifers
is an important geologic resource for farmers and municipal areas. In 2019, oil and gas production yielded $3.1 billion in oil and gas taxes and revenues for the state. Mining has historically also been important.

Geologic hazards are infrequent in New Mexico, but potential dangers include

volcanic eruptions
.

Physiography

Basins of the Rio Grande Rift
Map of physiographic provinces of New Mexico

New Mexico is entirely landbound, with just 0.2% of the state covered with water,

physiographic provinces.[4] These are the Great Plains, which makes up the eastern third of the state;[3] the southern Rocky Mountains in the north-central part of the state; the Colorado Plateau in the northwestern part of the state; and Basin and Range Provinces in the southwestern part of the state.[4] The presence of these four physiographic provinces gives the state great geological diversity.[5][6]

Rocks exposed in the southern Rocky Mountains are as old as nearly 1800 million years (

Ma),[7] while some volcanic flows in the state are geologically very young.[8]

An important geologic feature of New Mexico is the

Rio Grande River.[9] The rift marks where the Colorado Plateau in the west has pulled away from the interior of the North American craton on the east.[10] It has been the focus of significant scientific research on continental rift processes.[11]

Stratigraphy, tectonics, and geologic history

Proterozoic

Map of Precambrian bedrock exposures in New Mexico
Sandia Crest, an uplifted Mesoproterozoic batholic

The crust underlying the state formed between 1.7 and 1.8 billion years ago as

U-Pb dating. This indicates that the material making up the island arcs was extracted from the Earth's mantle
only shortly before the island arcs formed.
tholeiitic basalt.[14]

The island arcs were carried into a

subduction zone along the margin of Laurentia, the ancient core of North America, around 1700 million years ago, an event called the Yavapai orogeny. The arcs accreted to the continental margin, forming a band of new continental crust stretching from Arizona to Newfoundland and from the Wyoming-Colorado border to central New Mexico.[15] These events are recorded in the rocks of the Vadito Group and Hondo Group.[16] A second set of slightly younger island arcs accreted to the continented shortly after, around 1650 to 1600 Mya, during the Mazatzal orogeny.[15] The Mazatzal beds now underlie most of southern New Mexico and the Mazatzal orogeny is recorded in the Manzano Group of the Manzano and Los Pinos mountains.[17][16][18]

Zuni Mountains and Big Burro Mountains
. The total relief of Precambrian rocks is 11 kilometers.

The rocks are 70 percent

uranium-lead dating. All of the rocks more than 1.65 billion years old show evidence of metamorphism ranging between greenschist and amphibolite grade on the sequence of metamorphic facies. An area in the Cimarron Range in the vicinity of Taos reached granulite facies. Geologists debate the extent of different terranes—sections of continental crust—that joined. Metavolcanic rocks in the Tusas Mountains may be among the oldest, which are intruded by 1.65 billion year old trondhjemite
, but display more than one metamorphic fabric.

Precambrian rocks formed volcanogenic polymettalic sulfides, rich in gold, silver and tungsten, kyanite, copper veins and pegmatite with beryllium, lithium, niobium, tantalum and mica.[19]

The region was tectonically quiescent until around 1400 Mya, when the poorly understood Picuris orogeny deformed and metamorphosed much of the crust of New Mexico. This event is recorded in the rock of the Trampas Group and in extensive batholiths intruded into the crust throughout the western United States, such as the Sandia Crest batholith.[20] Following the Picuris orogeny, northern New Mexico was again tectonically quiet, while southern New Mexico experience some deformation associated with the Grenville orogeny. This is recorded in the Allamoore and Tumbledown Formations (about 1250 Mya) and the De Baca Group and Los Animas Formation (about 1200 Mya). Thereafter the region experienced steady erosion, which in some cases brought rock near the surface that had been buried as deep as 10 kilometers (6.2 mi).[21] This beveled much of New Mexico almost completely flat, forming a peneplain.[22]

Paleozoic (541-251 million years ago)

Map of Paleozoic exposures in New Mexico
Pennsylvanian limestone of the La Pasada Formation in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

New Mexico at the start of the Paleozoic was dominated by the Transcontinental Arch, an elevated region from Minnesota to northern New Mexico.[23] Small quantities of alkaline magma were intruded in the early Cambrian along north–south faults, which may indicate incipient rifting of the New Mexico aulacogen.[24] Later in the Cambrian, the sea began to advance northeast across New Mexico, beginning in the boot heel of the state (Sauk sequence) and sedimentary beds were deposited during the Cambrian through Devonian, beginning with the Cambrian Bliss Formation.[25] The sea did not submerge the Transcontinental Arch until Mississippian time.[26]

By the late Paleozoic, in the Pennsylvanian and

tetrapods.[27][28] Continental sedimentation began in the north and prograded to the south.[29]

At the same time, a deep basin, the Delaware Basin, formed in southeastern New Mexico and Texas, surrounded by the massive Capitan barrier reef. A brief rise in sea level deposited the limestone of the San Andres Formation across much of New Mexico, making this the most extensive Paleozoic formation exposed in the state. The subsequent retreat of the sea resulted in deposition of large deposits of gypsum, potash and salt of the Castile and Salado Formations in the Delaware Basin.[30][29]

Mesozoic (251-66 million years ago)

Map of Mesozoic exposures in New Mexico, USA

The Mesozoic began with the

Permian-Triassic extinction event.[31] The Sevier and Nevadan orogenies pushed up mountains to the west of New Mexico that produced a rain shadow, giving New Mexico an exquisitely hot and dry climate through much of the early Mesozoic.[32][33]

The

dinosaurs.[38][39]

The

Entrada Formation.[40] This was followed by flooding of northern New Mexico by an arm of the Sundance Sea, leading to deposition of the limestone and gypsum beds of the Todilto Formation. The Jurassic ended with the deposition of the Summerville and Morrison Formations, the latter deposited in a vast foreland basin east of the coastal mountains thrown up by the Sevier orogeny.[41][42]

The increasing weight of the Sonoma mountains to the west drove subsidence of its foreland basin, which included most of New Mexico. During the

Mancos Formation. Advances and retreats of the coastline are recorded in formations such as the Mesaverde Group.[43][44]

Towards the end of the Cretaceous, shallow subduction of the

Farallon plate drove the Laramide orogeny, which uplifted the Rocky Mountains and lasted into the Cenozoic. [44][45][46]

Cenozoic (66 million years ago-present)

Bandelier Tuff in San Diego Canyon

The Laramide Orogeny changed the topography of New Mexico into one of high uplifts and deep basins. The basins began to fill with sediments during the Eocene, recorded in formations such as the San Jose Formation,[47] the Galisteo Formation,[48] and the Baca Formation.[49]

As the Farallon plate disintegrated and sank into the mantle, hot asthenosphere rock rose to take its place. This helped trigger the Mid-Tertiary ignimbrite flare-up, which deposited significant ash falls across much of New Mexico. The vast Mogollon-Datil volcanic field was active during this time, as were the smaller Latir volcanic field and the Ortiz porphyry belt[50][45]

The rise of hot asthenosphere below New Mexico reversed the compression of the crust and put it into tension, resulting in the opening of the Rio Grande rift,[51][52] beginning about 30 Mya,[53] and the development of Basin and Range geology across the southern part of the state.[50][54] The development of the Rio Grande rift is recorded in the rocks of the Santa Fe Group.[55]

The Jemez volcanic field began to develop around 15 Mya, and volcanic activity subsequently spread southwest and northeast along the Jemez Lineament.[56] The Valles Caldera (or Jemez Caldera) formed in the Jemez Mountains 1.25 Mya ago in the Pleistocene, exploding and then collapsing into its magma chamber and emplacing the Bandelier Tuff.[57] Small mountain glaciers formed in the Brazos and Sangre de Cristo Mountains. [58]

Natural resource geology

Under Spanish rule turquoise and lead were mined near Cerillos and copper was found at Santa Rita in the southwest in 1798. Artisanal mining for placer gold took place after an 1821 discovery in the Ortiz Mountains south of Santa Fe. New deposits, along with the reopened Spanish mine in Silver City prompted a boom in copper mining in the late 19th century. Placer gold mining expanded into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and along the Rio Grande, while lead mining got underway in Las Cruces. Coal was discovered near gold and copper mines and potentially recoverable gold deposits grew more numerous as prospectors traced placer gold back to the veins where it originated.

In 1863, silver was found in Magdalena, west of Socorro, followed by a large find in Grant County. Silver City, White Oaks, Ute Creek, Cerrillos, Elizabethtown, Twining, Chloride, Hondo Canyon, Red River Canyon and Socorro were soon discovered to also have silver. Rising costs and depleted ore bodies have led to widespread abandonment and ghost towns throughout the state, which remain comparatively well-preserved in the dry climate.

Mining is still a cornerstone of the New Mexico economy, although it has largely shifted to open-pit extraction. Coal is mined in the northwest and copper, silver, gold, manganese, zinc and lead are extracted near Silver City. Molybdenum is an important resource in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, including the Questa Mine. Uranium is still mined close to Grants, although production has dropped after a high point between the 1950s and the 1970s. Gypsum, limestone, potash and salt are mined out of Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks in the east. Mining accounted for 3,763 jobs by 2018.[59]

The San Juan Basin in the northwest has active oil and gas production, along with the small extent of the Permian Basin in the southeast.[60] Oil and gas production in the state totalled 1,820,963,878 MCF of natural gas and 331,460,749 barrels of oil in 2019,[61] yielding $3.1 billion in oil and gas taxes and revenues for the state.[62] Mining has historically been important, but accounted for just 3,763 jobs by 2018.[59]

Because of New Mexico's typically semiarid climate, ground water in

El Paso are now among the most productive groundwater reservoirs in the western United States.[66]

Geologic hazards

Geologic hazards are infrequent in New Mexico, but potential dangers include

volcanic eruptions.[67]

Flooding is one of the more common geologic hazards in New Mexico.

tropical storms that carry considerable moisture, and such storm remnants contributed to both the 1941 and the 2008 floods.[68]

Earthquake hazards are moderate in New Mexico compared with California or the Wasatch Front in Utah.[69] One estimate puts the probability of a large earthquake in the southern Rio Grande Rift in the next century at 5%.[70] However, faults are concentrated along the Rio Grande Rift, with its urban centers, and while only 20 faults in the state are considered active, the consequences of an earthquake could be serious. The large number of faults increases the likelihood of an earthquake even though rupture of any one fault is infrequent. The largest earthquakes in historic times were two magnitude 5.8 earthquakes in 1906 near Socorro,[71] likely associated with the Socorro magma body, a shallow horizontal magma intrusion in the crust.[69]

References

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